


Advanced Geomorphology 2101

by kuill



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuill/pseuds/kuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith's too occupied with how Shirogane’s quiet amusement tugs the edge of his lip in a smile that softens all his rough edges at once. Why couldn’t he have listened when Lance had waxed apocalyptic about Advanced Geomorphology 2101? </p><p>There is no doubt that Keith is going to flunk this class.</p><p>Keith spends the rest of the lecture listening to Shirogane lecture rather than what he’s lecturing about, eyes glued to his phone as he combs the university’s page for its policy on nullifying the grade of an elective module.</p><p>-</p><p>That one College AU that nobody asked for!!! Self-gratuitous shippy sheiths!!! heck yeah</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advanced Geomorphology 2101

**Author's Note:**

> And one of the lines about Keith having multiple heart attacks was inspired by the brilliant Luvandia on twitter :)

To cope with not being the neatest student around, Keith’s settled on an elaborate system to catalogue and shelve away his things. After all, he’s alone in a huge dormitory apartment and he has all this under-utilised space. His standard operating procedure is a little too complicated to explain in detail, but the gist of it is as follows: he flings his things towards the approximate place where they belong after which he’ll forget about them until the next need arises.

Even with this chaos he never loses a thing. It keeps him on his toes. Whenever he needs to head out he plays games of  _ Snap! _ with his shoes, racing a ticking clock. If he needs to eat he’ll scavenge for forks and drink soup from the saucepan if his spoons are still dirty. 

He has a mental map of his room that changes every day, and keeping tabs on  _ that _ takes real dedication.

Alright, so Keith has as little control over his dormitory apartment as he does over his life. But maybe there’s something about a cluttered living space that calms him down. Something about feeling at home in the chaos, out of the rigid protocols of the social world. 

In the same day he moves in, the cubic apartment becomes something out of a natural disaster, a homely disarray that only he can put rhyme or reason to. 

Almost immediately, things start going missing. His favourite red jacket isn’t on the floor of the bathroom or flung over one of the chairs in the kitchenette. His tube of hair wax isn’t on the windowsill. When his expensive graphic calculator disappears, Keith actually flies into a rage, going for the textbooks and papers on the table and flinging it all onto the ground to find it. 

He’s just about to storm to management, to get his apartment door checked to stop thieves and robbers, when he notices all his missing things on his desk. 

The anger dissipates. 

Maybe he’s just tired, and he hasn’t been keeping up with his mental maps as well as he should. Engineering is a lot tougher than he’d thought it’d be, and his lecturers are fucking  _ insane _ .

He relents, continues with his life, chalks it up to a real bad case of college madness. It tests him, but isn’t anything that Keith can’t deal with. Things continue to appear and disappear in that haphazard way and Keith stops questioning it because nothing really leaves for long. 

 

 

 

Today, on a bright and beautiful Wednesday morning, Keith is late for lecture and his thermos is misplaced. 

It’s nothing too out of the ordinary, since nothing can beat his clothes moving over to a specific corner of the bathroom over the course of the day.

What makes Keith really tick is where he finds the metal flask: on the dining table, washed, capped, dried, and smelling faintly of lemon detergent. A stray thought settles in his mind that something’s  _ really _ out of place.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes. No time to think. “Alright Lance, jeez, I’m coming,” he growls, snatching up his thermos and dumping in a sachet of instant coffee. 

The kettle’s empty. Keith could’ve sworn he’d filled it last night, but he must’ve been mistaken. Overshadowed by his frustration, the inconsequential stray  _ thing _ from earlier fades into the background and is gone. Now Keith has to make do with lukewarm water. Now Keith has to  _ shake _ his thermos for the entire hike to class if he wants all the powdered creamer to dissolve.

The only thing more mortifying than that is how Keith knows, from experience, that he’ll down every drop even if it feels like yesterday’s dinner.

 

 

 

The path from the dorm curls fickle-mindedly around undulating hills, parallel to the main roads. The campus sprawls. It’s such a mess (like Keith’s life — hey look, he picked the right school) that there are designated buses that shuttle students to and fro. Those are the things that Keith absolutely  _ must _ watch out for. Under the glare of the tropical sun, a lone student trudging towards the main campuses are entertainment for bored students, and when the road twists and turns, even Keith knows you can spot a student even from a fair distance away.

Problem is, Keith has no choice but to walk. It’s ten to the hour, and at this time it’s not humanly possible to squeeze onto one of those shuttle buses without puncturing a lung. So he tries to be casual. Tries so hard to do it  _ discretely _ , switching from a mad shake to casual flips when he hears the faintest whine of an engine. The passage of buses are uneventful. After what feels like too long he finally climbs the last flight of steps, stumbles into the lecture theatre, and a strained “ _ fuck _ ” leaks from him when Lance is armed with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face and a pixelated video looping on the screen of his phone.

“I knew you couldn’t cook, but really? A sachet containing instant coffee, instant creamer,  _ and _ instant sugar, and somehow you  _ still _ manage to fuck it up this badly?” Lance slings an arm casually over the plastic seat, giving it a uncoordinated wriggle that still leads Keith’s gaze to the takeout Starbucks behind him. “Well, lecture hall’s air-conditioned, so you can even have iced coffee today.”

“There’s no such thing as instant sugar, jackass,” Keith’s arm is already snaking out towards the paper cup when a voice rings out over the chattering crowd.

“Stow it, folks. This isn’t the place for a riot.” 

In the sudden deathly silence, the source isn’t hard to find. Supported by the firmest thighs Keith has ever seen, a man more lieutenant than professor ambles coolly down the stairs towards the front. Keith’s engineer brain cranks into full gear in an attempt to understand the man’s weight distribution, but he can’t for the life of him work out how such amazingly muscled shoulders can fit so snugly in that crisp blazer when every slight movement betrays the strength that ripples beneath. 

The professor settles at the podium, arranging his laptop and books as he lets his eyes rove across the lecture hall. The faint scar tissue stretching horizontally across his face only facets and deepens that onyx gaze further. Keith actually finds himself stiffening, leaning back to press up against the plastic backrest behind him. Those shaved sideburns, that vicious undercut, the flash of perfectly bleached fringe all speak volumes about his immaculate and unattainable standards. 

“My name is Shirogane Takashi,” he begins, right hand resting casually on the desk. The man moves like a well-oiled machine. “Welcome to a new academic year, and welcome also to Advanced Geomorphology 2101.” 

The tension slowly bubbles away as the professor gives his introduction. Keith lets out a strained exhale before he casts a sidelong look at Lance, and the weak  _ Oh good god what have we gotten ourselves into now? _ deer in the headlights look he receives only makes him feel thankful that he isn’t in this hell all by himself. 

Keith blinks. Wait, Professor Shirogane? Advanced Geomorphology 2101 has been taught by Professor Holt for decades. 

A shy hand rises and the professor nods to let the girl speak. Shirogane shakes his head. “No, this isn’t lecture hall 12. It’s three floors down, past the Physics office. Earth Science 1011, yes? Say hi to Matt for me.” 

Lost freshmen stand awkwardly, one of them actually  _ bows  _ before scampering off. “Pfft, newbies,” mutters Lance, easing into a more relaxed slouch and taking a swig of his coffee. (A full day later Keith will realise that Lance had scalded his entire tongue and made the most undignified choke-splutter, and he will regret that he had been too distracted to notice.)

“Right. For the rest of us intending to be here, welcome again to Advanced Geomorphology 2101. Unfortunately, the brilliant Dr. Holt is away on sabbatical.” Shirogane finally attaches the last wire to his laptop and the visualisers whirr to life. “Fortunately, as his masters student, I have studied under Dr. Holt’s tutelage long enough that I know what to teach. But don’t expect me to mimic him on one of his nerdy geek outs,” he says, jabbing a warning finger at the laughing seniors.  

Keith, despite knowing exactly how eccentric Holt can be, doesn’t laugh, because he’s too occupied with how Shirogane’s quiet amusement tugs the edge of his lip in a smile that softens all his rough edges at once, and also because he's suffering fifty consecutive heart attacks. 

“Alright guys, knock it off.” This time the commanding tone is absent from Shirogane’s voice. “Time to start work for real.”

It’s their cue: the hall fills with a unanimous rustle of notes and readings. Shirogane waits patiently, the title slide of his powerpoint already loaded (perfectly designed, Keith notes with satisfaction, sleek serif font and well-balanced palettes of earthy reds). Even Lance is surprisingly quiet, for once ready for class while Keith is only able to clutch his thermos of clumpy coffee mutely between clammy hands. 

Even the way Shirogane lectures is unfair. Without Dr. Holt’s exaggerated descriptions Advanced Geomorphology 2101 is allegedly the driest Environmental Science module even though it’s about a planet made of 71% water. 

Shirogane turns it into a casual chit-chat, as if it is the most normal thing in the world to be discussing a massive underwater lake trapped within the boiling rocks of earth’s mantle. 

Why couldn’t Keith have listened when Lance had waxed apocalyptic about Advanced Geomorphology 2101? 

There is no doubt that Keith is going to flunk this class.

Keith spends the rest of the lecture listening to Shirogane talk rather than what he’s talking about, eyes glued to his phone as he combs the university’s page for its policy on nullifying the grade of an elective module.

 

 

 

The last thing Keith needs, when it is 1.30am and he’s spent the past six hours gnawing ineffectually on his engineering notes, is more poltergeist shenanigans. 

All his forks and spoons are stacked in a glass cup he swears has been left behind from the room’s previous occupant. 

It’s a very helpful ghost, but no. Just…  _ no _ . Keith stares for a full minute but the utensils twinkle merrily at him and there is only a gaping  _ what the fuck _ in Keith’s mind where a reason would otherwise surface. 

“I’m watching you,” he growls at them, and when he is satisfied to receive no reply, the reality of it hits him. 

He’s a second year making threats at a bunch of cutlery in the dark when he firmly refuses to believe in ghosts. Feeling inexplicably stupid he trudges back to his room. It must be the tiredness, it  _ must _ be. Engineering is destroying him. 

Keith doesn’t even close his bedroom door before he flings an arm across his eyes and is out like a light. His dreams are a warped bundle, lighthearted conversations about math in the hearts of mountains, his audience sporting locks of snowy hair and cheeky smirks, before his alarm rings. 

Half his face is already preheated by the sharp morning sun. Too early. He is a morning person but not while running on five hours of sleep. How had he even managed to live like this studying for the A Levels? He groans and peels his eyes open, taking in the cheap whitewashed walls, his desk already flooded with papers and crumpled foolscap paper, his messy clothes sitting in an unruly muddle beside the door. 

The door.

The door, which he’d left open last night, is closed. 

Before he fully comes back to himself he is striding down the stairs across the lobby skirting the student lounge and lunging for the dormitory office and announcing his arrival with a slam his fist against the door in lieu of a knock. Only then does Keith bite back a wave of self-conscious embarrassment, angling his head as best as he can so he doesn’t exhale morning breath over whoever is going to reassign him a new room.

“Hi,” he greets the clerk levelling a grouchy stare at him with a nod, and activates all the diplomatic genes in his body to say, “I have many personal reasons so I need a new room please.” 

Keith hears himself speak, and clamps his fingers in the cotton of his PJs so he doesn’t slap himself by accident. The clerk, clearly too underpaid to deal with such uncoordinated behaviours, slowly lowers her gaze to her laptop screen and leaves Keith fidgeting restlessly in the middle of the chilly doorway. 

His attention is snatched to the full-panelled glass doors when a shadow falls across the pavement outside. The dark shape connects to two black trainers, belonging to none other than the broad-shouldered masters student Shirogane. The man sports a gym bag slung over his right shoulder, a pleasant gaze and a spring in his step. Does he stay in one of the neighboring dorms too? Or does he come to school just to use the gym? His mind wanders easily over to Shirogane over the well-maintained gym equipment, the unbridled power in his strong frame finally —

“Excuse me.” The brusque grunt makes him jump. Shit. The clerk has been looking and has been openly  _ judging _ . Keith can feel heat rising to his cheeks. “Room number. Matriculation number.” 

“Keith Kogane,” he forces out on instinct, then closes his eyes so he doesn’t need to face the clerk’s dead-eyed stare. “Wait, no. Sorry. Student A113940R, room number 04-26.” 

“You mean 04-25?”

“Uh,” Keith can’t remember. “That.”

More clicking. Keith glances casually at the doors again, vainly hoping to catch another glance, but of course Shirogane has left and Keith has a sinking hunch that the man has seen him in this getup. He doesn’t even want to think about his bedhead. 

“Have you informed your roommate?” asks the clerk, reaching for her mug of burnt-smelling coffee.

“My what,” replies Keith. 

“Your roommate,” she repeats, more slowly this time, as if speaking to someone who might spontaneously combust for no apparent cause.

Keith stares as the pieces slowly come together.

As if struck by lightning he turns on his heel without giving her a response, hurling himself up the four flights of stairs back to his room. At the door, another cold jolt of dismay hits. Doors automatically lock themselves when they close. His room keycard is safely where it belongs: in his wallet in the pockets of his jeans left draped over the toilet. 

The thought of having to face that unimpressed clerk makes his stomach begin riverdancing. He didn’t even thank her. Wait, had the conversation ended? What the fuck was the resolution to that entire spiel? 

With a groan he leans his head on the door. This is a wreck, and his room is still haunted. Keith needs to go to church and be exorcised. 

Then, he opens his eyes and notices the slip of paper wedged between the door and the doorframe, just beside the door handle. His heart twists two ways.  _ I GOTCHA BUDDY _ , the note reads, and Keith is too done with all of this that he simply listens and accepts what the world throws at him, which is probably common in college but more possibly not as common as whatever’s happening to Keith right now. The door handle turns without resistance, and the door swings inwards.

Keith remains on the threshold, feeling uncomfortably like he’s breaking into his own house except that it no longer belongs to him but also to another person. 

His jeans are folded and placed neatly on the couch. On top is his battered keycard. It must’ve fallen out without his knowing. Another slip of paper is weighed down by the denim, sporting blocky text in blue ink. 

_ YOU’RE UP EARLY _

This is unreal. He walks over to the only remaining door in the dormitory suite, trying to come to terms with the fact that it is not in fact a janitor’s closet but the bedroom of another student. 

It takes him thirty full minutes for him to finally get his (new) life in order. Keith has accepted that he hasn’t the faintest memory what kind of dormitory he’d applied for since the application dates had been in the thick of crunchtime last semester. Hell, he doesn’t even know if he’d consented to a roommate, but he must have. The tiny sounds of human activity that whisper here and there, he’d attributed to some creaky old pipes, or really noisy dorm mates one floor above him. 

He tries to ignore the utter disgrace he’s turned the suite into as he picks up one of the fallen pens and writes in the blank space,

_ yeah haha some important thing came up sorry if i woke u _

First contact.

Alright. Keith isn’t going for lecture this morning. Later he’ll clean up, get the rest of the apartment in order, stop his disorganized life from oozing over into his roommate’s. 

For now he just needs sleep. This time he makes sure to lock his bedroom door and close the blinds. 


End file.
